


Rough-hew them how we will

by Jaxin



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, OTP: Bodhi/happiness, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Wolf Mother Leia Organa, actually make that OT3: Bodhi/therapy/happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:10:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9475118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaxin/pseuds/Jaxin
Summary: They live, somehow. Someday, they will be okay with that. Not yet. But someday.





	

They say that communication is the bedrock of any successful relationship. Bohdi isn’t sure who ‘they’ are, but he does know that they would be confounded by Jyn and Cassian’s relationship.

Most everyone in the Alliance is, although those who know what’s good for them ignore its existence. There have been others, others who decided they would give it a try with one of the Heroes of Scarif or another (and oh, how that term makes his stomach churn). Hell, they’re tried it with him a few times, and Bodhi would be flattered if he weren’t so disgusted. With them, with himself, with the universe.

The ones who try for Jyn or Cassian, though, they have only themselves to blame for the ensuing weeks of silent, menacing shadows that they have to endure.

People used to underestimate Jyn, when she moved onto Echo base. First she was a hero, locked away in the medbay for weeks with the other survivors of Rogue One, the child of the Imperials turned Rebel hero. Then she started hobbling around the base on crutches, and she was a tiny, broken, beautiful human.

Then someone flirted with Cassian in front of her, and she damn near turned the woman to ash with her glare. For the next week, Bodhi would find Jyn in strange places around the base, staring the poor woman down.

He had considered telling her she was being ridiculous, but then he started finding Cassian doing the same thing to anyone who hit on Jyn.

Word got around, after the first three would-be romancers transferred off Echo base. When it comes to Jyn Erso or Cassian Andor, just… don’t.

Not that they ever said anything, of course, to anyone else or (he’s fairly certain) each other. They just kept eating together at the mess, helping each other limp through physical therapy, attending debriefs together.

They had all still been locked up in the medbay, barely conscious, when word came through that the Death Star had been destroyed, and when Jyn broke down and _howled_ it was Cassian who moved to hold her.

Bodhi had barely been able to focus on anything, then, his burn-covered body wrapped in bacta bandages, and his brain still spinning from the destruction of Alderaan and then it was _gone_ , the Death Star was gone, but it was Cassian that reached back to touch him, to anchor him to the moment. Jyn’s small hand joined Cassian’s, a moment later, and Bodhi had never seen her smile like that. His breath caught in his throat, then.

She looked so much like Galen.

“He did it, Bodhi. Because of you. You saved him.”

He had started to cry, then, wet, heaving, sobs, and the nurse at the door quietly locked the doors behind her as she left them to their grief.

-=-

There is a wall, hidden in the back half of the loading bay, where someone—many someones—has scratched the names of the Alliance’s casualties on Scarif. Few linger there, as far as he can tell. He’s come across other mourners, sometimes. Some glare at him with outright hatred in their eyes. Some watch him in awe. Others refuse to look at him.

One watched him for a moment, then smiled, if it could be called that. “First battle I survived, I’d just turned 18. My brother was 25. He never got a chance to turn 26. Took me a while to be okay with that.” He rested his hand on Bodhi’s shoulder. “Be glad you’re not on that wall. If you can’t right now, that’s okay. But try. You’ll get there eventually.”

Bodhi found Cassian there, once. He was leaning against the wall, fingers tracing the rough carving that read _K-2SO_. He paused, but Cassian had already seen him.

Bodhi cleared his throat. “Your handwriting?”

“No.” Cassian smiled then, and Bodhi swallowed. In another life, Cassian’s face could be made for smiling.

But this was the life they had. Bodhi looked at the wall, at the heavy scratches that drove K-2’s name into the Rebellion’s memory. “I’m glad.”

Bodhi found Jyn there, more often. The first time, she was carving into the wall herself, her hands trembling. When his hands caught at her shoulders, she shook him off and kept carving. “Someone left Baze out. They added Chirrut, _without Baze._ ”

He didn’t bother trying to stop her. When her hands shook too badly to complete Baze’s name, Bodhi took the blade from her and finished the name. “They’re together, Jyn.” Her eyes were red with tears, marked with bruise-like circles. “They’re together.”

Her lip quivered, and his arm went around her shoulders before she dropped to the ground. “But they’re not here.”

Another arm joined his, and he looked up to find Cassian on her other side. “No, but we are. We’re here.” She turned into Cassian’s chest, and he leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers. “We’re here.”

The next time Bodhi visited the wall, there was a line of names under Chirrut and Baze’s. The handwriting was sharp and clean, small, nothing like his shaky hand or Jyn’s impatient scrawl. _Saw Guerrera. Galen Erso. Lyra Erso._

He didn’t have to see any of Cassian’s reports to know who had carved those names.

-=-

Alderaan is the ghost hovering behind every smile, as the Rebellion celebrates the destruction of the Death Star. It lends an air of madness to the celebrations, as if they are all attempting to outrun their grief.

 _Too late too late too late_.

Bodhi is toasted throughout the base. They all are.

They do not want to be.

Jyn and Cassian brace themselves on either side of him, glaring at anyone who comes too close.

He catches a glimpse of Jyn’s profile sometimes when he thinks she wouldn’t want him too, her jaw tightened in rage and grief.

There is an emptiness in Cassian’s eyes when he nods at the cheers of his fellow soldiers. They have all lost too much to lose themselves in the celebrations, their ghosts plucking at their sleeves.

But Jyn and Cassian look at each other, sometimes, and Bodhi eases himself back to the edge of the room, leaves them to contemplate each other.

They may not say anything out loud, to anyone else or each other. They may not admit it to themselves.

But he knows what _I love you_ looks like.

He imagines for a moment that he can hear Chirrut’s chuckle, can feel Baze’s solid warmth. And when a Rebel pilot—Antilles, he thinks, Wedge Antilles—brings him a Corellian ale, he accepts it with a nod and finds that he can make himself smile.

-=-

This is how they recover: in fits and starts, some days filled with purpose, others left hollow, filled with nothing but memories of the missing. Bodhi finds he is no longer the only one who gets lost in his own mind, and he regrets the camaraderie more than he appreciates it.

Cassian is grounded, his advice called for but not his actions. A traumatized spy is a dangerous asset to have in the field, something even Cassian has to acknowledge. He lingers outside the war room like a surly ghost, and even General Draven comes to appreciate the respite Jyn’s presence offers from Cassian’s bad mood.

When Cassian is finally cleared for fieldwork, Jyn flies out beside him. _Codependent_ , they call it. Bodhi watches, and waits. Their missions finish, again, and again, and again, and the whispers fade as they keep bringing back results.

The whispers change, _codependent_ no longer an invective but a shrug.

Bodhi smiles.

Antilles approaches him, as he does his best to repair the Rebellion’s patchwork fleet. His hands still shake, but that doesn’t mean they can’t work. “We’re assembling a new squadron, you know.” He pauses, and looks as uncertain as Bodhi’s ever seen him. “We want to call it Rogue Squadron. If that’s okay with you.” Bodhi stills. His hands keep shaking, shaking and shaking and _shaking_ and Antilles is helping him sit down, his large hands warm on Bodhi’s shoulders and he should be embarrassed but he can’t handle anything other than breathing right now and Antilles is still talking “Princess Organa suggested it, she insisted,” and he can hardly breathe now, she lost her family, her whole world, why is she thinking of them, doesn’t she know it’s their fault, that they should have been faster, done more, done _something_ and Alderaan is _gone_ and

A small hand is resting on his shoulder, small and chilly and a light voice says “breathe with me, breathe.”

He breathes with her, breath tearing in and out of his lungs, holding, pausing with hers, slowly moving back into an unconscious rhythm and then he looks up and _it’s her_.

She looks like an angel, haloed by the bright spots of his panic attack. She is small, so small, a tiny figure in white, her eyes big enough to hold the night sky, and she smiles at him and he asks _why_.

Her smile fractures, but it stays. She crouches next to him, Antilles wincing next to her and she shouldn’t be on his level, she’s a hero, and she touches his shoulder again and he quiets.

She’s shaking her head, something aching in her expression. “You’re a hero, too, Private Rook. None of this would be possible without you. _None_ of this.” Her gentle touch shifts to her clasping his shoulder, and he is somehow not surprised by her iron grip. “Without you, that monstrosity would still be in the skies. Alderaan would not be its only victim.” He flinches, and she corrects herself hastily, eyes wide with mortification. “Alderaan and Scarif and _Jedha_. Oh, Force, I’m sorry—”

His hand rests on top of hers, and to his surprise it is not shaking. He meets her eyes, then, hers and Antilles’, and smiles. “It is beyond an honor. And, your Highness, don’t worry, it’s not the same—”

“It is.” She meets his gaze squarely, and he thinks _here is a soul that can move planets. Oh, Chirrut, how you would have smiled to meet her._ “No one gets to forget that, least of all me.”

The next time a soldier sneers _Imperial scum_ at him she is there, dark eyes blazing and voice sharpened to a glacial edge. The man flees, and if he weren’t human Bodhi would say he could see his tail between his legs. The princess nods at him, moves off, and Jyn steps up next to him with a broad grin on her face.

“So that’s the princess, huh.” He nods, cheeks burning, and her smile turns feral. “I _like_ her.”

He laughs dryly and shakes his head. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”

-=-

This is how life moves in the Rebellion: forward. It’s all they can do.

And sometimes, sometimes Bodhi finds that it is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh hi, fanfic. It's been a few years. 'Scuse me while I go sailing down a certain river in Egypt, because I will argue for the movie's narrative perfection until I'm blue in the face, but my word... what could have been.
> 
> (Also, Diego Luna's face just GLOWS when he smiles, and it kills me that Cassian would never, ever smile like that.)


End file.
